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Do You Have a Funny View On-Purpose?

June 26, 2018 By kwmccarthy

Classic OP Minute from Nov. 17, 2009

Purpose statements are challenging to write.

Most who write them are confused about the basic concept and structure so the end product is flawed, often with humorous benefit. Some are just poking fun or trying to be funny.

In today’s On-Purpose^® Minute I’ve culled from Twitter some “enlightening” points of view about the purpose of life. I hope you’ll find the wit and wisdom refreshingly entertaining.

To follow me on Twitter, I’m @kevinwmccarthy. For Twitter users, if you want to reference some on-purpose work, then please use #onpurpose.

Have you seen some funny thoughts about the purpose of life?

Please share them below.

Be On-Purpose!

Kevin

Are Business Plans Still Relevant?

June 21, 2018 By kwmccarthy

What’s your business plan?

What? Don’t have one? Don’t put it off much longer!

With the ever-increasing speed of business, can business plans keep pace? In this On-Purpose Business Minute, let’s explore the shift in the nature and the need of business plans.

We’re in an era of people and speed—two generally opposing forces.

Most of us don’t embrace change readily or easily. This resistance slows down the speed of the organization and growth that is so sought by the organizational leadership and demanded by the marketplace. By embracing this basic understanding of human nature and the inherent conflict you’ll be wiser and smarter about what to do.

Armed with this insight about the change–speed challenge, the logical question is What to do about the need for speed and change.

First, accept it.
Second, manage it by going to the deep strategy—purpose, vision, mission, and values. These “clinical” understandings of the corporate culture need to be communicated via strategic stories that infuse and educate the team about why what they’re doing makes a difference. In other words, resistance to change falls by the wayside when the opportunity before us is contribution to a greater good. In fact, we get anxious (in a good way) and excited to see it come about. Now speed is what the team wants.
Third, make the connection between a traditional business plan and the purpose of your organization.

Much is written these days about corporate culture.

But what is it really?
How is it shaped?
What needs to happen to create and sustain it?

Deep strategy is the start in the form of an elegant business plan.

If you are a start-up or small business with ambition, then get ahead of the curve today by planning your corporate culture. If you’re leading a larger organization, then you can truly get big gains by going deep. It is more complicated the larger the business, but it is all manageable.

Do you have the “deep strategy” strength and clarity in place to engage and inspire your team so they’ll advance and accelerate the organizational goal?

Need help? Contact me.

What Is Money Worth to You?

June 19, 2018 By kwmccarthy

What is money worth?

After watching and reading this On-Purpose Minute, I invite you to comment below.

Money, life, and work are interwoven life themes. Your money perspective paints your financial outlook. Here’s a preview:

Money matters!

There isn’t a day in your adult life when you’re not handling money.

Consider all we do with money:

exchanging money for time
making money on the job
spending money for groceries, goods, and services
doing money makeovers
investing money
counting money
worrying over money
saving money
wasting money

There are nefarious aspects of money such as counterfeiting money, stealing money, embezzling money, and “following the money.” The list could go on.

Money is everywhere. Money moves and measures the economy.

Money is our storehouse of value. Money is in our pockets and purses. Money rests on our dressers, in our drawers, and under our mattresses. When we’re short of money and long in the month, we’re worried.

Money can be the currency of a relationship, as in a couple fighting over money, investing for retirement, or saving for a home down payment. Money opens doors to social standing and status. There are people with old money and new money. Money can define a parent–teen relationship. There’s mad money. And then there’s money madness.

Money has meaning but it isn’t the source of meaning and worth.

It can be a source of security, income, worry, emotional stability or instability, the driver of our decisions, and generous giving.

Artists and theologians weigh in with gold nuggets of money advice:

1 Timothy 6:10 informs,

“For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.”

Did you catch that last phrase, “and pierced themselves with many griefs”? Talk about self-inflicted problems! Money is the result of service, provided there is a mechanism in place for a fair exchange of value.

Pink Floyd’s Money lyrics (first stanza below) from their album Dark Side of the Moon reflects the dilemma with the almighty dollar:

Pink Floyd Dark Side of The Moon album cover — Click the cover to order from amazon.

Money, get away
Get a good job with more pay and you’re O.K.
Money it’s a gas
Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash
New car, caviar, four star daydream,
Think I’ll buy me a football team
Money get back
I’m all right Jack keep your hands off my stack.
Money it’s a hit
Don’t give me that do goody good bullshit
I’m in the hi-fidelity first class traveling set
And I think I need a Lear jet
Money it’s a crime
Share it fairly but don’t take a slice of my pie
Money so they say
Is the root of all evil today
But if you ask for a rise it’s no surprise that they’re
giving none away

In a prior On-Purpose Minute titled, “How’s Your Trust Account?” I invite viewers to consider where their trust is located … really.

Previously, I asked you to consider what you would do differently with $100,000 in your pocket.

Money will become whatever you choose it to become.

Will you become a slave to it or will you be the master of it? Come to terms with your attitude toward money. Money can be a source of great confusion and consternation. It can also be a source for provision and blessing.

Money can help you be on-purpose! Every time you use it, ask yourself, “Am I spending or am I investing this money?” Then consider if you are spending time or investing your time.

Ask yourself this simple question: What is money to me? Now you’re invited to chip in below with your comment to the question: What is money?

Let me hear from you!

Be On-Purpose!
Kevin

P.S. Perhaps you remember this “Show me the money!” scene from the movie Jerry Maguire.

How Do You Measure Your Meaning or Purpose In Life?

June 19, 2018 By kwmccarthy

[This question in the blog post title was posted on Quora. Below is my response.]

Life is 100% meaningful so there’s no need to measure it. The simplest explanation is this, in the cosmic sense either life is meaningful or it is isn’t.

In some scientific manner, I can’t prove that life is meaningful. So it takes a leap of faith, not necessarily religion, to embrace the concept of absolute meaning. In short, each of us gets to choose our absolute worldview: either life is meaningful or it is not. Semi-meaningful isn’t a choice.

Given the choice of life is meaningful or meaningless, why choose coloring your life with the despair and hopelessness of the latter? Even when the current condition or situation or relationship appears meaningless, meaning is at work in the background waiting to frame it with hope and possibilities. It means being expectant and seeking it. The other option casts us deep into the darkness of the ultimate “living” void.

Purpose provides a more personal connection to the cosmic meaning of life. It’s our unique understanding of who we are and how we belong on the planet. Purpose, like meaning, is always present in our lives.

Where it gets confusing is our awareness of whether we are on our purpose–aligned with and giving expression to our purpose or not. That’s being on-purpose or off-purpose, respectively.

“Highest and best use” is a term used in the appraisal (measurement) industry. In times of “highest and best use” of the expression of purpose we’re apt to check the box and say, “Yes, that’s meaningful.” In “bad times,” we’re erroneously declaring, “That’s not meaningful.”

The measure of meaning, therefore, is relative against an absolute benchmark. In this sense, how meaning is measured is up to the individual to define their version of “highest and best use” and “lowest and worse use” and all that is in between.

The point is this: you have one life that is rich in meaning and capable of higher and better expression of your purpose. Your choice is free of your current condition or circumstance. Therefore, choose the life is meaningful worldview and you’ll inherently have a 100%.

How Convincing Are You?

June 14, 2018 By kwmccarthy

When was the last time a salesperson convinced you to buy something? And how did that purchase work out for you?

Some salespeople see selling as a win–lose competitive game of point–counterpoint verbal combat. Be careful! It can work, but it is a highly skilled game that walks a fine line between providing the needed information and intimidating the buyer into a purchase—once! Sales is listening

Sales is learning what’s important to the customer and addressing it.

The best salespeople ask lots of questions; then they shut up and listen with both ears wide open.

For example, in technical sales where buyer and seller are highly qualified and knowledgeable, this approach can be an act of sizing up and iron sharpening iron. Generally, you’ll find that it is the buyer, not the seller, who initiates this more pressured approach.

Be careful, however, because the difference between healthy banter and an unhealthy, dominating buyer may be a very thin line. In the latter case, a humble, noncombative approach may serve you best. In other times, the better the banter, the better your chances. Skilled salespersons can turn it on or off depending upon the buyer’s style and by assessing the appropriateness of the situation and person.

In a sales situation where the seller knows more than the buyer and the buyer is communicating the need for input or insight, attempts by the seller to convince the buyer often result in a buyer turnoff. The buyer may sense that the seller is more interested in making the sale than consulting or serving them with integrity. In short, they don’t trust the salesperson. When that happens the transaction is disadvantaged.

One of the great challenges in selling today is the leveling effect of information from the internet. Most buyers can find tons of information, reviews, and competitive analysis on goods and services. Therefore, as a salesperson or business owner who is selling, counting on your strategic advantage as being more informed than the buyer is a dangerous proposition. In fact, you may be more knowledgeable and experienced than the buyer, but to try to argue or convince the buyer sets up a high-risk scenario for creating distrust. Humility, not hubris, is the better path.

One of your strategic advantages and value propositions is the diversity of clients and customers you’ve worked with. In other words, you see patterns of use and abuse. You’re able to borrow from the experience of other customers and advise clients as to likely scenarios they may encounter and may not have anticipated.

Those involved in selling often find themselves in a really tough place.

From the strength of their knowledge and conviction, they perceive they know exactly what their client or customer needs, yet the client isn’t buying. Your natural inclination may be to lean into the act of convincing them with an even more reasoned set of facts, benefits, and features why this is the right purchase for them. Just how convincing do you think you’ll really be?

When that urge to tell overtakes your tongue consider just the opposite approach. Ask more questions. Ideally, you have what I call a “patterned conversation” in which you have a strong sense of what needs to happen (a pattern of questions that leads to an informative and insightful exchange) but not a preconceived notion of where it may lead.

Ultimately, buyers are looking to advance their larger goal.

If you don’t know the larger goal then you’re not really listening and learning what’s at stake.

Getting into a “convincing-fest” is rarely your best approach for earning the relationship and sale. It is often an indication of a salesperson who is taking shortcuts or is using dominance or personality or style to pressure someone into doing something they don’t want. This manipulation, however, can work.

Alternatively, there’s a time when a customer needs to be led to their decision. Leveraging your experience and capacity to anticipate their needs, you’ll take them along the path of discovery versus jumping to the final destination. It takes more time, but it often makes for a better solution for the client because you, too, will learn some things along the way and be able to provide a more valuable end result. Truth be told, you can make a sale or you can build a relationship. Ideally, you do both.

What Are You Worth?

June 12, 2018 By kwmccarthy

No, this On-Purpose Minute isn’t a financial net worth kind of question! Much is made about self-worth and self-esteem, but preceding these is inherent worth.

Have you ever considered yourself as having inherent worth for just being who you are?

Many people are asking, “How can I find more self-confidence?” The underlying question isn’t a matter of gaining more self-confidence. First it is a matter of having confidence in one’s basic humanity, reason for being, and, as the U.S. Declaration of Independence describes them, “certain unalienable rights.”

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Are you prone to place conditions or performance standards on yourself to establish your worth as a human being?

Conditional worth, esteem, or love always fall short because they are based on external or environmental factors, beyond our control. Whether such conditions are self-imposed, learned, or simply cultural they’re limiting and limited and ultimately don’t serve us well.

Even the self-improvement business can’t solve your challenge if you believe you don’t have value from the day you were born to today and into tomorrow.

What does it mean to truly accept your inborn value?

What are the implications for you if behind all of your impressions, experiences, education, achievements, and performances you’re still empty in the end simply because you grip to a notion that somehow you “don’t deserve it”? Share your thoughts in the comments sections below.

This On-Purpose^® Minute invites you to explore your inherent worth and to accept your unconditional love. Scrape away the accumulation of lies, shoulds and oughts, put-downs, and abuse to reveal the depth of your being. Explore what you really believe about yourself and your worth in your heart of hearts.

Your inherent worth journey promises to be a valuable experience, albeit it may be a painful one, too. Appreciate how to do more than just build your confidence and to understand and accept the wellspring or source of your confidence, worth, and value just for being you.

There is a reason the tagline for the personal leadership offerings of On-Purpose^® begins with “Be Yourself.” Implied in “Be Yourself” is coming to positive terms with who you are. This is more than just accepting yourself for who you are. It is to joyfully embrace the extraordinary and spectacular supernatural reality that you even exist and that you have a reason for being. Your 2-word purpose is a simple key unlocking the remarkable truth of your existence.

Yes, you may need to step far back from where you find yourself today to prospect for your intrinsic value. Do it! Don’t settle for seeing yourself as fool’s gold when you have a 24-karat heart and life buried within begging to be discovered and explored.

Be prepared, however; the exploration of your inherent worth leads to a way where forgiveness and grace will be necessary to both give and receive. It will inspire improvement and intrinsic motivation to be and become. Inherent worth is best realized with a change of heart toward God, self, and others … in that order.

Women: Recommended Reading

Janet Cronstedt and J. M. Emmert co-authored Going to the Well, a modern parable set against the Bible story of the Samaritan Woman at Jacob’s Well. Explore the many issues of self-worth and inherent value through this easy reading message that will ring true especially for women. Men, if you care about your wife or daughter, then read this to better know how to be a man for the women in your life.

Powerful insights and understanding found in Going to the Well can lead to healing and recovery from the many plagues of low self-esteem and worth. You can’t afford to keep living the way you are. Go to the well in order to become well, whole, and worthy.

From the Mind of Mel Kauffman (used with permission) in response to this On-Purpose Minute

Great message Kevin,

One of the siblings of low self-esteem is shyness. I am attaching a writing called Shyness No More. There are so many hidden messages in this tiny paragraph.

So many parents mention that they have a child who is shy. Not true. No child is born shy or with low self-esteem. Shyness was added by inappropriate parenting. No two siblings are treated with the same parenting.

To me, the best method of shyness recovery is to consciously stretch your zone of comfort.

No book that I have ever read has explained the source of low self-esteem and a simple way to eliminate it.

Pass it along,

Mel

Shyness No More

I believe that shyness is a habit. Shyness is not in your DNA. Shyness is not in your genes. Scientists have not been able to isolate one shyness molecule. Being shy is instilled. A newborn in the nursery is not shy. The newborn will do what it needs or wants to do without shyness or hesitation. Soon when the newborn becomes a small child a parent will utter, “My child is shy.” The parent will utter these words in front of their child. How sad. All of us seek attention. Soon the child will realize it is getting more attention by being shy, then the child becomes shyer. How sad. When the child becomes an adult it seldom speaks. Speaking becomes emotionally painful. Anais Nin wrote, and then the day came when the risk of remaining tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. Neale Donald Walsch, who wrote Conversations with God, penned these words: life begins at the end of your comfort zone. So in order to have more life a person must enlarge their comfort zone. One way for your zone to have a larger circumference is to be pushed. Mother eagle commanded her eaglet, “Come to the edge.” The eaglet said, “I am afraid.” Mother eagle admonishes, “Come to the edge.” The eaglet once again said, “I am afraid.” She pushed. The eaglet soared! Wouldn’t it be delightful to soar out of your shyness into a world that is waiting for your words? Ralph Waldo Emerson had another suggestion: do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain. William Shakespeare over 400 years ago gave us this thought: act the part and you become it. Shyness recovery is a decision. When you reach the age of self-reliance, you will decide.

Mel Kaufmann

(1921-2018)

19 Ways to Conquer Low Self Esteem

Above is an interesting article with a diversity of ideas and points of view on low self esteem sourced by Jordan Ring.

Why Does Change Management Fail?

June 7, 2018 By kwmccarthy

What is change management’s greatest failure?

I am a contrarian about change management. It is just plain sloppy, imprecise language by the manager to describe a process and not an end result. The strategic work and a meaningful communication and action plan are missing. In the end change management invariably whips the corporate culture into a phase of unneeded confusion resulting in lost productivity and broken momentum.

There is a better way—growth management!

Change management is too often the latest in a line of misguided management marketing ploys to justify their efforts and position themselves to employees and shareholders as being on top of the business when they’re not. The employees know better and the shareholders are too distant to recognize the deficit of details being sold to them as strategy and leadership.

Change management is used at every level in organizations where two or more persons form a team. Supervisors to CEOs use the word “change” as a subtle form of control. Change management is a “wonderfully” accepted and euphemistic term in the general management business community for “a bunch of people (but not me) are going to pay a price for what’s getting ready to happen in this company.” Change managers use a variety of terms to disguise the stark reality that they are imposing their will upon their team and the consequences will fall upon the team.

Per Wikipedia, the definition of change management is “… any approach to transitioning individuals using methods intended to redirect the use of resources, business process, budget allocations, or other modes of operation that significantly reshape a company or organization.”

True translation:

Change = everyone else is going to accommodate what the change agent is saying and that person is just trying to figure out a way to break the bad news to you but doesn’t have the guts to speak plainly.

Amazingly, change management is the name of courses in business schools with professors and degrees focused on it. Major consulting firms have entire practice areas focused on it. Yet it remains a misdirection and distraction to the health and well-being of organizations.

As a business person or business leader, change is a word that you need to take as a warning to your own management approach. When you talk about change, it means the leader is either unclear about his or her vision or is unwilling to state it clearly. The subjects of the change, who are often far too trusting or at risk of challenging, will eventually learn whether the change was for good or for bad.

Regardless of the venue, leaders who market “change management” are as laughable as the emperor’s new wardrobe. The “beauty” of change is that it offers no measurable result, direction, or accountability.

Change can be negative or positive.

It just means something will be different, period. Well, of course, something will be different. Don’t settle with change—clarify what it means and where it is leading. Know the direction. Understand the destination.

Change is blind strategy with an escape clause for the change agent but rarely for the recipients of change. In reality, expect decline unless luck prevails!

The Power Option: Growth Management

Change is risky business. Few of us like change. Yet change, like breathing, is a fact of life.

Instead of change, let’s make the standard one of growth management.

Now the business person (or CEO) is focused in an upward direction and has a measurable result with a charge to add value instead of an ill-defined, open-ended nothing strategy that’s likely to result in decay rather than in growth. Decay is easy—do nothing. Growth, however, requires rolling up one’s sleeves, yanking out the weeds, and nourishing what’s discerned and defined as desirable.

Growth can include profits, behavior, people, relationships, and morale. Change is ultimately unaccountable babble left to the discretion of the leader making the change and an empty vision. It may sound inspiring, but it is merely sleight of hand illusion.

Growth requires a proactive partnership of time, money, talent, and a host of other factors coming together to a common cause. Growth is still a broad term that, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. It does, however, call forth cooperation, effort, and something of a more positive and productive nature on the personal, professional, and organizational levels.

Here’s a simple example. Pretend your boss walks in and says, “Let’s talk about a change I’m making to your paycheck.” What’s your response? You’re sure a pay cut is coming. You anticipate that your job or territory is getting ready to be reduced or eliminated. Am I right?

Now let’s imagine your boss walks in this time and says, “Let’s talk about a growth I’m making to your paycheck.” Growth has replaced change. Now assuming your pay stub doesn’t have a tumor, in the second example, you’re getting engaged and excited because your boss is communicating that plans are in process for a raise and an explanation for your coming reward. Economic growth and development trump economic change (and decay).

The mere act of replacing one word makes all the difference. Change is an implied downer. Growth is an exciter.

My suggestion: only use the word change when describing what’s in your pocket after buying your Chick-fil-a lunch any day of the week except Sunday. Change is apropos when reporting on the past. It is not a strategy for the future. Be in the business of growth and you will more likely be on-purpose.

Learn more about how to strategically and effectively create a pathway for growth management and value creation. Watch The On-Purpose Business Plan 9-minute instructional video.

What Is It About This Milestone?

June 5, 2018 By kwmccarthy

(This video was recorded a few years ago, on the event of our daughter, Anne, turning 18.)

It is graduation season. Many young people—and their parents—are facing transition.

It is a milestone for young people in terms of coming to legal age. While parental responsibilities for education aren’t going away anytime soon, it does represent a passage of sorts for all of us. It also presents parents with new options as we begin living more as empty nesters.

What’s your advice to parents about redefining how to best create amazing adult children relationships?

Please share your thoughts by using the comment section below (not email) to help us have a parents’ guide to this new beginning. You’ll help a number of parents facing the same transition.

Are your children all adults? Having crossed this threshold, what advice do you have to offer?
Have you recently crossed the threshold into adulthood or do you have a memory of your 18th birthday that brings a bit of wisdom or even levity to the matter? Please share it below.

I posted this question on my Facebook page on my daughter’s birthday a few years ago. Here’s some of the advice from my Facebook friends about making a positive parent connection as our children continue to mature:

Michael McMillan – Congratulations, Kevin. Our 3 have passed that milestone, too… and I have no advice 🙂

Mary Tomlinson – My favorite example is that we go from being responsible for them as parents to becoming more of an “advisor,” and being there for them when they need us and staying out of their way when they don’t need us.

Chris Taylor – From the words of Robert Munsch, “I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always, as long as you’re living, my baby you’ll be.”

Chris’ quote comes from the book “Love You Forever.” When Charles and Anne were little we read this wonderful book to them over and over. In fact, it still brings a tear to my eye as I reflect on those special times with them when they easily fit in a curled arm.